The biological effects of circularly polarized light on living cells are considered to be negligibly weak. Here, we show that the differentiation of neural stem cells into neurons can be accelerated by circularly polarized photons when DNA-bridged chiral assemblies of gold nanoparticles are entangled with the cells’ cytoskeletal fibres. By using cell-culture experiments and plasmonic-force calculations, we demonstrate that the nanoparticle assemblies exert a circularly-polarized-light-dependent force on the cytoskeleton, and that the light-induced periodic mechanical deformation of actin nanofibres with a frequency of 50 Hz stimulates the differentiation of neural stem cells into the neuronal phenotype. When implanted in the hippocampus of a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease, neural stem cells illuminated following a polarity-optimized protocol reduced the formation of amyloid plaques by more than 70%. Our findings suggest that circularly polarized light can guide cellular development for biomedical use.

圆偏振光对活细胞的生物学作用被认为微不足道。在这里，我们表明，当金纳米颗粒的DNA桥接手性组装体与细胞的细胞骨架纤维纠缠在一起时，圆极化的光子可以促进神经干细胞向神经元的分化。通过使用细胞培养实验和等离子体激元力计算，我们证明了纳米粒子组件对细胞骨架施加圆偏振光依赖性力，并且光诱导肌动蛋白纳米纤维的周期性机械变形的频率为50 Hz刺激神经干细胞分化为神经元表型。当植入阿尔茨海默氏病小鼠模型的海马体中时，按照极性优化方案照射的神经干细胞将淀粉样斑块的形成减少了70％以上。我们的发现表明，圆偏振光可以指导生物医学用途的细胞发育。